Closing Statement from edward long

There are nine comments. You can read them in less time than a coling ststement would take to write. Several related posts have indicated little concern about the internet becoming significantly more regulated by the government. Oh well. Vamos a ver! Thanks for your thoughts everyone. TED Rules!

Nov 2 2012:
My pleasure! But there is a downside to this technology to be aware of. This is also the place of illegal and unethical content of the internet, namely child pornography, as it not only covers up good intentions, unfortunately!

Nov 2 2012:
"Why is the U.N. about to impose regulations on the Internet?"

It can't impose anything without the security council agreeing, the US has a veto in the security council and can thus block the thing from becoming anything more than a guideline. Anyway, don't pretend like the US is the pinnacle of freedom on this subject: no one in Europe gets jailed for jailbreaking an iPad, or bankrupted for downloading 30 songs, or forced to pay a billion in damages for building a device that has the same geometrical shape as another company's device, so the US doesn't need the UN to restrict freedoms. But really, the UN can't do anything without the security council, it has never been able to ban torture or child labor so what makes you think they can ban internet freedoms?

P.S. much of the reason the UN is even dealing with this is because right now the United States holds all the keys to the global internet, a truly concerned American conservative would want something to change about that (give the keys to Switzerland or internet freedom walhalla Iceland, or an independent NGO).

Nov 2 2012:
The government wants to control the internet so that people don't expose their secrets. So that sites like wikileaks don't spring up. So that people can't criticize them. They want to kill the democratic nature of the net and we need to stop them.

TED Conversations Archives

We’ve spent three years sharing Ideas, Debates and Questions — and learned a lot.

Now we’re going on hiatus to retool and rebuild from the inside out for a better conversation experience.